HomeFAQsWhat is the Difference Between Programmable vs Digital Hearing Aids?

What is the Difference Between Programmable vs Digital Hearing Aids?

Last Updated: Feb 25th, 2019

Just a decade ago, modern hearing aid technology is very difficult from what was in use even. Scientists have proven that the human ear is not designed to naturally hear sounds that are of a low or high pitch.

Generally, there are two types of hearing aid available are analog and digital. However, the Analog hearing aid is also known as the programmable. The analog hearing aid that is advanced version is now available.

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Comparison between Programmable vs Digital Hearing Aids –

Analog hearing aids

Analog hearing aids work in a similar way to a microphone hooked up to a speaker. It gathers the sound from the surrounding and analyzes it and as a result, the sound heard at a louder volume. It cannot distinguish between multiple sounds.

This hearing aids picks up outside sound, amplifies it, and outputs the same sound at a louder volume. An analog hearing aid is not able to separate foreground and background noise or isolate certain types of sound. It amplifies all sound equally.

However, many analog hearing aids are still programmable, and even offer multiple listening modes for different environments. In analog hearing aids sound isn’t digitally processed. Therefore some people think analog hearing aids sound “warmer”.

Advantages

They are cheaper than digital hearing aids.

Huge battery life.

They are easy to set up.

Digital Hearing Aid

Digital hearing aids work by passing sound through Digital Signal Processor (DSP). It is a tiny computer microprocessor chip which helps in processing and analyzing multiple sounds. Digital hearing aids have many advanced capabilities and benefits that are not possible with analog technology.

If we considered analog hearing aid is like a microphone and a speaker then a digital hearing aid is more like a computer. However, It still takes in and puts out sound, but in between, it can do some amazing things. It can amplify or eliminate frequencies and noise patterns and even shift sounds to more comfortable ranges. It can also interact with computers, phones, and many other devices.

Advantages

Multiple channels are available to distinguish between multiple sounds.

Adjustable and reliable.

Smaller and lightweight as compared to analog hearing aids.

Detect automatically the best sound.

Components of Hearing Aids

Microphone: It receives the sounds waves from the air and converts them into electrical signals. Basically, there are two types of microphones:

Directional: Directional microphones receives the signal from the person standing in front of the person who is wearing them.

Omnidirectional: The name is Omnidirectional because omnidirectional microphones receive the signal from all the directions.

Nowadays, most of the hearing aids came up with both mics features i.e. directional and omnidirectional.

Amplifier: The signal received from the microphone goes to the amplifier which increases the power of a signal.

Receiver: It converts the digital signal into vibration. This passes through the inner ear to the brain. Some of the hearing aids are directly set into a particular position in the ear canal. Some others set nearby a small tube by which it connects and inserted into the ear.